Page 92 of Snowbound with the Santas

“We don’t need your help,” Frankie snaps. “We never need anything from you.”

Cecil’s thin lips twitch into a faint smile. “Be that as it may, I won’t be pressing assault charges. I’ll be clearing everything with the lodge so that when you are released, you are free to do as you please.”

Archer doesn’t speak. I suspect he doesn’t trust himself. Thankfully, Nick is there to do it for him.

“Thanks,” Nick replies, not sounding at all thankful. “That’s decent.”

“You—Nick, was it?”

“Yup.”

“I will arrange the same for you. I think young Ashton will be too caught up in other matters to think about pressing charges against you. You should all be released within the next few hours.”

Nick nods curtly, and Cecil takes his leave, moving back to the front of my own cell. Just the sight of him makes my stomach flip, and I have a terrible urge to claw at the walls for a way out. I need to be able to move around and breathe free air. I need to feel something,anythingother than this trapped, confined feeling that’s crawling up my body.

“Rayne.”

“I have nothing more to say to you.” Not a word. Learning Uncle Cecil is my father is still unfathomable. I can’t decide what hurts more, that he only tells me now because he’s using his power to keep me out of prison or that my mom knew and never told me. All those years I was kept in the dark.

Maybe this is a good thing. Too often, I feel a pull back to my mother, to the family I feel like I owe with my presence. I got guilted far too easily into being here. Sure, if I hadn’t then I never would have met Frankie, Nick, and Archer. But never again.

This is my limit. These people aren’t my family. Not even a little.

I glance over at my men who are all watching me closely. Even Archer holds softness in his eyes when we look at each other, and my heart beats a little stronger.

“I understand. Emotions are high right now.”

“You’re kidding.” I snort. “Just tell me one thing.”

“Sure.”

“Why didn’t you want me? Why, at any point over these past years, did you never want to tell me, to reach out? Even when I became an adult and had my own life, you were alwaysthere, so why didn’t you tell me?”

Cecil straightens his stance. “Honestly?”

“If you’d be sokind.”

“I have no interest in being a father. Not then, not now. My initial relationship with your mother was an affair, so keepingthings secret worked for both of us. After that, well… I had no desire to be strapped down to a child.”

“Strapped down?” Nick bites out. “You’re a fucking piece of work, you know that?”

Cecil sends him a cool glance. “Not everyone is cut out for fatherhood. I understood my limits. Would you have preferred I did a half-assed job of parenting and gave Rayne someone to resent?”

“Because growing up thinking my father had abandoned me was so much easier?” I snap, drawing his attention back to me. “Although I suppose that wasn’t a lie, was it?”

Cecil raises one brow. “We can discuss this fully when you are out of here. Then we can go home and talk it through with your mother.”

“No.”

“No?”

“No,” I repeat. “I have absolutely no interest in anything you or she has to stay. I’m staying right here with the men I love. Because you know what? They care about me. And I care about them. And it’s the first time in mylifethat I’ve felt loved, and I like it, so I’m staying right here until they are released.”

Cecil wrinkles his nose slightly. “You… love them?”

“I do,” I say proudly, and then I glance at the three warm, awe-filled faces peering through the bars. “I love them. And this is where I belong.”

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